07.08d: Matters of State

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Joshua
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07.08d: Matters of State

Post by Joshua »

(OOC:
New Rule: Rule #1 applies to keeping secrets from the GM.

So, as Arden got some really bad advice on how to do this from someone not in the game, I get to fix it.

This thread is starting OOC. Why? Because Sadie spent a month in game working on a document that was designed not to piss people off. She had help from Prescilla, who, while not perfect, would have caught all the really obvious stuff. Now, there are lots of reasons that this is a bad idea, even just logistically. And had it been posted on the OOC board, for example, this could have been avoided.

Also, as I finally got a little warning on this, I did manage to suggest a few courses of action that would prevent immediate execution by Dworkin. However, it's clear that I was only given half an idea of what was about to happen.

Yes, it's amber so there's pc vs pc stuff, but seriously, unless your goal is to disrupt the game, stuff that dramatically affects other PCs should be discussed in advance with all affected players. You are going against the characters, not the players, and most definitely not ME. I trust people to keep IC things IC and OOC things OOC. You should too.)
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Joshua
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Re: 07.08d: Matters of State

Post by Joshua »

For Reference:
Constitution of the Sovereign Kingdom of Rebma (abridged)
By Royal Decree of the Queen of Rebma:

Let it be known to all who reside and travel the lands of Rebma that I, Sadie, Queen of Rebma:
Do hereby pass into law this covenant between Myself and the people of Rebma.
Do hereby willingly abdicate those powers of My Right as provided by this covenant.

Let it be known that the following is the Law for all that exists within the Kingdom of Rebma:

That none but the reigning monarch of Rebma, hereafter known as the Crown, or Regency of the Crown, may approve and sign the passage of any law which may govern either the lands or peoples within the lands of Rebma, hereafter
known as Rebma. Only those laws which the Crown has signed into passage may govern Rebma.

All laws, as passed and and exercised by the Crown, may only be disputed by a citizen of Rebma, hereafter known as citizen. A law may only be disputed in an approved, procedural manner as deemed fit by the Crown.

All citizens are beholden to the laws of any land in which they travel, domestic and foreign, and will uphold those laws as service to the Crown.

Only citizens may challenge the laws of Rebma, as both written and enforced, through defined process or through peaceful demonstration when permitted. Permit for peaceful demonstration shall be issued upon application. Furthermore, all other forms of challenge, protest, or dispute between individuals, conglomerated entities, and entities of the Crown are hereby deemed as illegal.

All citizens are henceforth charged with the defense of the Crown and the integrity of the Constitution.
Initial objections include:
  • Does this mean citizens of Rebma must fight crime in neighboring countries?
  • This causes problems for everyone in Amber - issues of ownership and control, particularly of the docks, of citizenship for those who live in Rebma but work elsewhere, or work in Rebma but live elsewhere, issues of borders and customs and tariffs, of crime and extradition and legal rights.
  • Do Amberites have any rights in Rebma?
  • Do citizens of the city of Amber?
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Joshua
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Re: 07.08d: Matters of State

Post by Joshua »

And as I finally get to weigh in on this:

Rebma is one of the more isolated parts of Amber. It is, more than any other location, a separate physical city. There are almost no members of City Amber who visit Rebma on a regular basis.
That being said... The docks are dual-owned by City Amber and City Rebma. That's more an addendum, but stating the constitution only applies to the underwater city, is a good thing. Ownership by foreign parties is not currently an issue in Amber Law, and that's something that shouldn't be worked into the main part, the part that's seen IC. It's in the many pages of legal rules that come with this king of government, so intent is more important.

BTW, english is an inexact language, so I encourage people to care about the intent of the document, instead of the precise wording. you can assume when someone says "that's not the intent" what they mean is "Okay, it's 3 times as long, and uses wording that eliminates that possibility, but I don't want to write that out."

This will switch to mostly IC once the initial stuff is removed.
Wyvern
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Re: 07.08d: Matters of State

Post by Wyvern »

Encouraging people to care about intent over wording: Great! Except all we have is the wording. Can we get the intent, please? Preferably in a simple bullet point style list, rather than four hundred words of flowery prose with exactly one line break?

Objections I have so far:
You say you wish end the "current reign of chaos" - okay, so, make some laws; why does this require secession?
You say you want to "preserve the freedoms of my people from those that would wish to command them for their own selfish gains" ...Who exactly are we talking about? And how does secession help with this? You could just as easily declare that laws governing Rebma must be proofed by you without secession.
You say that you want to "join together" and "create a new union"... So why the fruitbats are you starting by tearing Amber apart?

Basically: What problem are you trying to solve by declaring Rebma a sovereign nation?
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Joshua
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Re: 07.08d: Matters of State

Post by Joshua »

I can answer part of that... Dworkin can make any laws over any member of Amber. Any Amberite can go to Rebma and declare any laws or ordinances they want. The constitution states this is not possible. Of course, this may start to pale when people realize someone with advanced pattern can basically erase Rebma from existence... (Although Primal Chaos is a bit more effective.)
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Sadie
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Re: 07.08d: Matters of State

Post by Sadie »

OOOOK.... so why no warning there was all this trouble before I left out this morning? BTW my current post in the loneliest breakfast thread came before even noticing this thread and I like it so I'm keeping it. As for bullet point, your questions John are not so easily answered in such a fashion like Josh's is.

Josh's most recent post does answer a bit of it though. As for "make some laws" that works but with the current law system it requires dealing with bunch of nonsense laws that promote the maintenance of chaos (according to Sadie, Me and some simple logistics) and make the whole matter complicated, sovereignty circumvents these laws completely with one act and allows the creation of new laws in the same act. It's quick and dirty but speeds things along that might otherwise take longer than we may have with the apparent looming threat. It is clear Sadie took this route because she's primarily concerned with a time constraint of unknown length.

The intent, well actually a lot of that can be found in the most recent post. Sadie is well aware that she comes from a different world than most of the other Amberites, that her style of government is not the same, and believes that feudalism will not grant the results necessary to win this war. While she has no intent of trying to gain control of any area that is not of Rebma where she is queen she does wish to strengthen Rebma and do her part to defend all of Amber, which she does not feel she can do with the current system. It is easiest in her mind for all that rather than have strongly conflicting courts with drastically different ideals on law that we instead be separate so that a ridiculous game of law ping pong doesn't occur that weakens us and strengthens our enemies. She's governing Rebma by an entirely different system of government, you tell me how four courts can govern the same people with drastically different governmental systems?

As for Josh's Questions earlier
Initial objections:

Does this mean citizens of Rebma must fight crime in neighboring countries? (They are not the law there so technically such is likely illegal so no as that would be breaking the law except wherin it's permitted by that country's laws in which case it is hoped and expected of them to do what they can to help the law there.)
This causes problems for everyone in Amber - issues of ownership and control, particularly of the docks, of citizenship for those who live in Rebma but work elsewhere, or work in Rebma but live elsewhere, issues of borders and customs and tariffs, of crime and extradition and legal rights. (That's the kind of thing that typically gets worked out through politics, this is supposed to be a political game, no? Well it comes with some annoying things like this. It does cause issues which should be resolved in game as it would in real life. Yay real politics.)
Do Amberites have any rights in Rebma? (Yes, they are foreign dignitaries and gain all the protections of such. Which yes are not fully defined ooc or potentially IC yet.)
Do citizens of the city of Amber? (Yes, they are bound by all laws except those that define them as responsible for the protection of and maintenance of law. This means that as guests so long as they follow the law every member of Rebma is required to protect their rights should anyone Rebman or otherwise trespass illegally against them.)

Noted PS: If anything in this has come off as hostile it was not meant as such. I've had a strange day, am feeling really weird, have had a nagging feeling there's something really wrong and have yet to figure out what it really is as I doubt it's a game causing this level of gut foreboding. I'm in a strange, nervous, and bad mood currently and am likely not in the best mind to be dealing with this.

As for bad advice, well... I did say it didn't quite sit well with me on several occasions. Is not my natural inclinations. Should have gone with my normal honest instincts, my apologies. That said I do have a tendency of showing my hand before I should, which leaves me with trying to figure out how/where/when/if I should be trying to fix that.

Furthermore I should probably have written it myself, but dammit with my current schedule as well as work and stress load I just took an out I shouldn't have. My most recent post is far closer to Sadie's reasoning and intent than the original post in some respects. Sadie is preparing for war and trying to create a strong nation and people the only way she knows how. It probably would have come out much differently had I written it... and honestly am not happy with it's current form, the original he wrote was much better but that was lost. It also had the whole reason I went to him in the first place that this did not, real legalese, so nothing was unclear and there was no real question of meaning. A lot of the current questions were much more clearly answered or at minimum referenced a non existing document which at least implied there was more to it to be discussed with the intent in those documents.

Well back to feeling weird and oogly and make some phone calls tomorrow to make sure everyone in my family is alright because this strange gut feeling is that bad... Speaking of which as the idea just occurred to me, is everyone on here alright? Nothing really bad happened to anyone did it? Because this is really bothering me.

Addendum: This is a new edit added. I'm having trouble sleeping now, keep worrying I've upset people ooc, that there's no positive outcome to this whole thing, and that the rest of the game will be tainted by it. That even if I do continue hurt feelings ooc will prevent things from going right or proper on either or any side of this now or in the future. Of course it could also be that I'm groggy, tired, and as stated feeling really weird and am totally misreading or applying meaning to things that aren't really there. Either way am considering dropping game or maybe coming back with a new less intense character when my overtime ends... I really do like Sadie though so I don't know... will try to catch Josh and talk on aim assuming I'm not dead from exhaustion in which case... I don't know when I'll talk to him or what's going on...
Sadie - "You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law..."
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Joshua
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Re: 07.08d: Matters of State

Post by Joshua »

(OOC: Full disclosure, I'm likely going into a class today where, as a teacher, I will have to lock the door and throw students who are misbehaving out.)
Also, I moved it to the OOC board, It should have started there.

We're all adults here. Nothing cannot be repaired. And I made this thread to try to prevent that kind of disruption.

So, the declaration as was presented to me had the following bullets:
  • Random Amberites cannot go into Rebma and make laws, decrees or execute people off the streets.
  • All citizens of Rebma are to be trained as militia and are to own the defense of their own city.
  • Dworkin's ramblings don't apply to Rebma unless it is okayed by Rebma.
  • Nobles can't execute peasants... Civil rights... etc.. etc...
  • (I pushed hard for this, and it sticks.) This will be phased in by NPCs with decent warfare and good political savvy aided by what PCs want to help, likely over the course of several in game years.
That's it, doesn't seem so bad when you just distill it... it also happens to be similar to what occurs in Rebma.
And for a similar argument: Martin Luther King Jr. vs Ghandi (Not Worksafe, for the f-bomb)
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Re: 07.08d: Matters of State

Post by Sadie »

She's actually hoping for enough time to get the next generation up and running before true war breaks out. It really works best after indoctrinating the youth into the cause and having them take over from those that might not "get it" or lack the true nationalism, ideals, training and ethics she intends to instill in the youth. So yes expected to take time. Also intends to phase out nobility "over time" and replace it with people of sound ethics, morality, training and dedication to the full hard standing military rather soft standing military most citizens fill the role of.
Sadie - "You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law..."
Wyvern
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Re: 07.08d: Matters of State

Post by Wyvern »

Why no warning? Well, you had some warning - I kept coming up with objections and being told "No, no, that's dealt with, just not written in," which should, in retrospect, have been a warning sign that what got posted didn't stand on its own. And real problems didn't start until after you'd left, when other players started trying to figure it out & respond based just on what was posted. (Which includes at least one whose reaction to this whole mess was "So, there's this thing, it doesn't seem to me to be well thought out, but every objection I try to raise is answered with 'no, don't bring that up' from the GM. F this, I'm just not going to bother trying to make a response."

In fact, looking over it again... you kept OOC stating that this was built with checks and balances and trying to limit even your power... but it reads as a total power play that puts all power in Rebma in Sadie's hands.

As to how such disparate legal systems can coexist: the answer is, very easily. Consider the real-world USA: one nation, many states, each state has its own laws. You could easily imagine a setup where one state actually had a king, while another had a constitution w/ a parliament and everything. Similarly, a feudal system allows the same: each individual ruler can change how the system works in their own territory. There's nothing in this that requires Rebma to be a sovereign nation - and, in fact, if your goal is the defense of Amber, that's counterproductive.

...I have this nagging feeling there's something more I wanted to say here, but I need to go to work. Maybe I'll remember later.
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Re: 07.08d: Matters of State

Post by misfit »

I've been quiet so far because I don't want to make Arden feel that he's being ganged up on, becuase I don't believe that's anyone's intent, but I did want to say a few things.

First, no this didn't upset, but it did surprise the hell out of me. As John said, what was posted reads as a total power grab on Sadie's part. I've been games in past where people would try something like that, it just seemed totally out of character for Sadie.

Second, I don't think any of us are lawyers, so if anyone of us wants to present a legal document in game we should probably just stick to stating intent rather than specific wording. Actually, come to think of it, if one of was a lawyer that might make it even worse. LOL

Third, given the nature of the game we'll probably do things from time to time that another player doesn't like much. Well we're all big boys and girls so we can still play nice together. It's just a game after all, not life and death. (No offense Joshua :D )

Finally, if this hasn't been released to the public yet in game there is still time to PCs to voice their objections and try to help Sadie refine it to address their concerns. Not even Sadie could write a bullet-proof constitution over night. :)

End of the day I put it down as "good intent but poorly executed"...and that's certainly fixable. :) The day I achieve perfection is the day I start demanding it out of everyone else. LOL
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